Page:Specimens of German Romance (Volume 3).djvu/18

 Sometimes even his answers were confined to silent gestures.

As we passed a lone house upon the road a girl came out and called to the driver. In her hand was a mirror, which she delivered over to him with many injunctions for its safety, to which the man replied by as many protestations of his responsibility, and put it at once into the hands of the blind stranger, desiring him to take especial care of it. This last piece of insolence completely revolted me, and I demanded how he dared to ask such a thing.

“Dared!” he re-echoed with some surprise; “why the man’s blind, and those who can’t pay their way in the world must work their way.”

“Let me,—I entreat you,”—said the stranger, and frankly undertook the charge, which nothing but downright impudence could have imposed upon him. The other passengers eyed us both with smiles of contempt, and in particular the two young women, who had besides the pleasure of seeing the doctor and the lawyer at their side, a place which they